


The Best Policy

by GTRWTW



Series: The Publican's Confession Box [2]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith, Strike (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Smut, Sort Of, it will make sense when you read it, no actual smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29286765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GTRWTW/pseuds/GTRWTW
Summary: Strike and Robin decide that the truth is the way forward.Kinda smutty, but no smut. Make of that what you will 😉
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: The Publican's Confession Box [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149110
Comments: 49
Kudos: 90





	The Best Policy

"Come on then, Strike. Let's have a no-bullshit rule, just for one night."

Strike was taken aback by Robin's earnestness; her clear blue eyes locked onto his, her gaze searching, seeing. He felt unaccountably embarrassed, although he wasn't sure why he should feel anything but amusement. His sixth pint sat on the table next to Robin's gin and tonic, the drinks almost touching, cold beads of condensation sliding their way along the glass towards the table. Despite their hectic week, they were having an uncharacteristically lively night; the effects of the alcohol were beginning to take hold, and Strike had long since stopped measuring his words with any care before he spoke them.

"No bullshit? Do we normally bullshit each other?"

Robin almost rolled her eyes, but she seemed to catch herself. She looked away, to the side, onto the table, before looking back at him.

"No," she replied, "but we don't tell each other the full truth."

Robin was alive with the kind of recklessness she had often disparaged in her brother Martin: a flicker of something wicked, a fiendish desire to lay bare her thoughts and watch the consequences take flight like phoenixes from the ashes of her long buried feelings. She wanted to shake him; couldn't Strike see what was tumbling around inside her psyche? She felt, perhaps unreasonably, that he ought to just know what she wanted without her telling him. Robin grinned to herself as she considered what she really wanted at that moment: she wanted a hot bath and an orgasm. She couldn't decide which one she'd prefer over the other. Strike's eyebrow quirked up at her grin, and she blushed as she imagined telling him what she'd been thinking.

"Go on. Just for once, be… just be honest with me. Say what you actually think. And not what you think I want to hear or what you're used to saying to women, what you  _ actually _ think," she effused.

Strike gave a small internal start, but made no outward sign whatsoever.  _ Not what you're used to saying to women. _ Was Robin bracketing herself with those women he'd dated? Surely, if not, she would have said people, or colleagues or friends or anything other than women. They usually skirted around these subjects. She was right; they had never told each other the whole truth. Maybe you should just go with it, he thought wryly. Maybe she wants to know exactly what's in your head. Right now.

"All right," said Strike.

"All right…" imitated Robin, earning herself another raised eyebrow and a sarcastic smirk. 

"That sweater you're wearing is hideous," he said. He waited, and he was not disappointed. Robin let out a shriek that was part laughter, part indignation.

"What? It's just plain!" She snorted into her drink, looking down at the offending sweater and back up into Strike's smiling face.

"See? You don't want truth. People think they want truth, but they don't. They like it packaged up and presented with a little bow on it, so they can handle it. You don't want me to tell you your sweater's awful, but you'd be fine with me buying you a new sweater and saying I like that style more. That's what people want. It's the same bullshit, just rolled in glitter and wrapped up in shiny paper."

Strike finished his speech with a nod of his head and a long pull on his pint. Robin was watching him, her eyes gleaming, her face shining with merriment; she wanted this Strike. She wanted an honest, forthright, acerbic Strike. She wanted a forceful Strike. She forced herself to concentrate.

"I don't want glitter. I want something real. I don't want lies or pretty illusions. I want you to tell me what you're thinking, even if it's awful. I don't care that you hate my jumper. You're allowed to hate my jumper."

"Robin, I don't really hate it. It's just a sweater. It's a sweater, by the way -"

"Bloody southerners," interjected Robin.

"- and anyway, you clearly didn't want to hear it. So how do I know you can handle the truth?"

His gaze burned into her, and Robin didn't quite know what he was getting at, but she saw a glint in his eye that told her that he was flirting with her. He wanted her to contradict him. She was enjoying this game.

"I didn't want to hear that because I knew you were lying. It wasn't the truth. I was taught by a top detective, you know. I can tell when people lie to me." Robin leaned forward on the table, her elbows on the sticky wood, her chin resting on her fisted hands. "I can handle anything from you. Why don't you try me?"

"Try you?"

Robin could feel the hot flutter of his gaze against her face.

"Yeah, try me," she said wickedly. "Tell me something true."

Strike leaned in, mirroring Robin. He pushed his pint away, across the table, so that there was room to meet her; their faces were inches apart, and they looked at each other with barely concealed excitement.

"Something true?" asked Strike. Robin nodded slowly.

"All right," he said. Robin picked up her glass and took a swig. "My sister thinks I'm going to marry you," said Strike matter-of-factly.

Robin choked on her gin; she spluttered for a couple of seconds, Strike laughing and patting her on the back. When she recovered her ability to speak she considered her words. She had started this, she knew, but she still felt a thrill not unlike the one she had experienced when drinking vodka in a field in Masham when she was sixteen. 

"And do we get a say in this, or will she drag us down the aisle kicking and screaming?"

"I don't know. Lucy's pretty determined; who knows what she's secretly capable of?" he joked. "Anyway, your turn."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you said you wanted us to tell each other the truth."

"And?" Robin wanted to know more about Lucy's theory and how Strike felt about it.

"So tell me something you're thinking," he said. His voice was low and rumbling, his gaze intense. Robin looked at his stubble for a few seconds. Maybe she ought to take her own advice, and give him an insight into her head. Her previous thoughts about the thing she wanted most swam to the front of her mind.

"I'm thinking…" she began. Strike waited expectantly. "I'm wondering what that feels like."

"What?"

"Your - you know -" It felt too intimate to say the word. She pointed to the short hairs on his jawline, and ran her fingers along her own jaw to clarify. 

"The stubble? It's a bit scratchy if I leave it too -" He broke off. Robin's face had turned scarlet. "That's not what you meant, is it?"

Robin took a sip of her drink, her face a picture of feigned innocence. "Of course that's what I meant. I meant what it must be like to have a beard. What else could I have meant?"

Strike watched her for a long beat, a smile fighting its way onto his mouth, his eyes dancing with elation. Robin watched him wrestle with his expression, trying and failing to look nonchalant while she tried equally hard to will the blood out of her cheeks and back where it belonged. She realised it was futile when Strike continued to look at her with his searing stare, and her cheeks heated some more.

"You could have meant that you want to know what it's like," he began, leaning closer, whispering, "against your skin. You could have meant, I don't know, that you wanted to feel it on your cheek. Or your neck," his gaze drifted down as he said the words, and Robin felt a burning sensation down the side of her throat, from ear to collarbone. "You could have meant that you wondered what it would feel like on the inside of your thighs, moving upwards, scraping against soft skin…"

He dragged his gaze back to her eyes, and his expression was pure sex; Robin pressed her thighs together and squirmed in her seat. Strike noticed and smirked. Robin knew he'd seen. There was no hiding it. 

"That's quite a leap," she said breathlessly.

"I thought we were being honest with each other?"

"Well, I didn't say you were wrong," replied Robin.

A moment passed. Robin stared at Strike, tingling all over. He looked back at her, relaxed, his big hand resting on the table. He slowly pushed his sleeves up towards his elbows, exposing the golden skin and dark black hair of his forearms. He smirked as he registered Robin's eyes following his actions, and her hard swallow when he flexed his arms gently. He turned his hand over, palm up, and Robin watched his pulse in his exposed wrist. She licked her lips, and Strike felt hot blood rush to his groin.

"So, if that's what I'm thinking, what are you thinking?" Robin asked boldly. Strike raised an eyebrow, pausing for a few seconds before he answered.

"Now, I'm thinking about that," he pointed to Robin's face.

"My stubble?" she joked in a transparent attempt to dampen the tension. But her shallow breaths betrayed her; she brushed hair from her face and tried to control her racing heartbeat.

"No," he said, leaning closer, "your blush. I'm wondering what it would look like if I did run this stubble across your neck, or down your thighs." His voice was hypnotic, and Robin almost forgot to breathe as she hung on his every word. "I think you'd blush even harder if my mouth was on your skin." He smiled. "Am I still right?"

Robin felt the room dissolve around her; there was nothing else, no one else but them. 

"I'd like to find out," she whispered.


End file.
